The winter, 2005 issue of Contexts (a
leading sociology journal) featured a photo essay on the infamous
Cummins
Prison Farm in Arkansas. One photo showed about twenty convicts
in a field picking cotton, while a white guard stood over
them. Another photo showed a tractor pulling about 8 carts filled with
convicts returning from the fields, with four guards riding on horses along the
left side. The black and white photos could have easily been taken 100
years ago at one of several “plantation prisons” in the South. They were
among about 5,000 photographs taken by sociologist Bruce Jackson between 1971
and 1975.

Plantation prisons emerged in the southern states shortly after the end of
the Civil War. Not surprisingly they were modeled after the slave plantation. Practically
all of the prisoners were black, both male and female. They were sent
to these prisons “on the flimsiest pretexts and then put to hard labor in the
fields of these prisons, often in chain gangs.” Prisons like Parchman in Mississippi
and Cummins in Arkansas were little more than slave plantations which, along
with convict leasing, extended the slave system long after emancipation.

Many of these prisons became notorious over the years, resulting in literally
thousands of deaths. Perhaps the most infamous case came to light at
the Tucker Prison Farm where a reform-minded warden named Tom Murton discovered
numerous bodies of dead prisoners buried in the fields in the 1960s. The
scandal created quite a stir at the time. Even a movie, Brubaker,
starring Robert Redford was made about this scandal.

Throughout history those in power have sought to control groups that they
perceived to be a threat and/or groups they wished to dominate for political
or economic gain. The methods of control have varied from economic marginalization
to thought control via propaganda to subjecting them to the control of the
legal system to total or partial segregation and finally, in extreme cases,
total extermination (e.g., genocide). In America such control has targeted
Native Americans, African slaves, labor agitators and many others.

It can also be said that the use of inmates as a form of cheap labor has been
part of the capitalist system from the beginning, as owners seek to maximize
profits however they can, including using the cheapest form of labor, whether
it be slaves, immigrant labor, or inmates. In fact, taking advantage of those
imprisoned (in various forms, including slavery) has been common among nations
for centuries.

Among the various forms of exploitation include the use of transportation,
which was common up until the start of imprisonment in the early 19th century. Such
a practice was developed by private merchant shippers in the 17th century and
involved literally taking pardoned prisoners to North American plantations
for a period of “indentured servitude.” It was one among many methods
of amassing large fortunes during this time among certain capitalists, without
having to resort to the so-called “free market.” It should be noted that most
of these “indentured servants” were white, who were separated from black slaves
(who were not among the convicted criminals at that time). The end of
transportation coincided almost exactly with the increased use of slavery in
Colonial America. Capitalists soon learned that there were even more
benefits from the emerging African slave trade than white indentured servants. Among
the many advantages of slaves was the fact that they “were held to perpetual
instead of temporary servitude, they were cheaper to feed and clothe, they
replaced themselves to some extent by natural breeding, and they endured the
hot climate of the plantation much better than white men.”

In America, slaves were important to the colonial economy (providing much
needed cheap labor for a relatively small group of landowners); yet at the
same time most whites thought of them as “savages” whom they feared. Laws
were passed that perpetuated the slave economic system. The slaves were
classified as chattel or property. When the Declaration of Independence
was written and the statement that “all men were created equal” what they really
meant was “all white men were created equal.” The emphasis here, of course
was on “white” and “men,” since women were treated almost as if they were slaves. The
white ruling class created an economic and political system, complete with
a set of laws, that guaranteed slavery would remain intact.

As our standard history books have told us, constantly reinforced during our
public school education, the slaves were “freed” after the Civil War ended. Well,
not exactly. After the war the South was faced with some rather serious economic,
political, and social problems. Political and economic recovery was among the
first priorities because the economy of the South, based as it was on a slave
mode of production, was being replaced by a capitalist mode of production.
Another crucial problem was what to do with the newly “freed” slaves. What
the white ruling class commenced to do was to begin the systematic oppression
of blacks and maintain a system of caste rule that would replace a
system of slavery. What happened was that the sharecropping system
replaced slavery as a “legal” method of controlling the labor of African-Americans. A
system of agricultural (and eventually industrial) “peonage” emerged and was
supported by such informal methods as vigilantism, intimidation, Jim Crow laws
and the like. What became known as convict leasing was a prime example. This
topic is explored in Part II of this series.

Randall G. Shelden is Professor of Criminal Justice at the University
of Nevada-Las Vegas. He is the author and co-author of several books
on crime and criminal justice, including Controlling the Dangerous Classes:
a Critical Introduction to the History of Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice
in America: a Critical View, Girls, Delinquency and Juvenile Justice and
Youth Gangs in American Society. His latest book is Delinquency and Juvenile
Justice in American Society, to be released this summer. A more detailed
version of this series, complete with footnotes, is available on his web
site: www.sheldensays.com.